Steve Sailer writes: About a decade ago, a friend of mine who is a big time senior lawyer in an Anglosphere country invited me to attend a series of symposiums and social events he was hosting for two visiting U.S. Supreme Court justices at his world famous golf club. I couldn’t afford to go so far, but when we had lunch at the L.A. County Museum of Art in 2013, he reported that Justice Breyer was a prince of a guest.
He had much more interesting gossip to report about the other Justice.
COMMENTS:
* That’s possibly the worst, vaguest blind item I’ve seen in years. There’s no hint of who the other justice is, and no hint of what the “more interesting gossip” might be. Really, fix that if you want us guessing and salivating.
That said, I’ve noticed for a while now that Supreme Court justices have always been extremely long-lived and extremely long-worked. The shining symbol is Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was a judge for 50 years, including 30 on the Supreme Court, and was actively working on the Supreme Court until he was 93.
Part of it is that most justices have decided the case long before oral argument due to their own philosophies, so there really isn’t much new thinking going on (all that “hot bench” type quizzing of lawyers is for show, and was largely Scalia-driven). Overall, court cases on appeal (which is what the Supreme Court hears ) don’t require a lot of fast mental agility or quick thinking; the process is built towards slow, laborious deep thought that an older justice can do well.
The privacy, insulation, and resources afforded the justices are very conducive to longevity. A couple of young bright clerks every year do any minor rush/grunt work that is needed (spell checking, citation checking, etc.), but there is no press beating down your door, there really aren’t any huge deadlines, and your job is secure as long as you want it. Marshall and Blackmun’s mental deterioration were never noted until after they died, because the press never could get to them and their clerks could cover the slack.
And summers off. Don’t forget the job gives them from late spring to early fall (first Monday in October) off. That’s a great gig for anyone.
All in all, a Supreme Court Justice’s job is pretty idealized for an older, wiser mentor-type. It’s a call back to some kind of retired-consigliere type position or old, wise man sinecure in other societies, where the old men would be asked large philosophical questions by the leaders, but were not expected to be involved in the day-to-day affairs.
* $214,000 is certainly too little if you want Justices who will have a more traditional family life and raise children.
This maybe partially explains the trend towards childless /homosexuals on the bench (Souter, Sotomayor, Kagan.)
Scalia had a few kids but they went to public schools in Mclean.
* Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see anything to get upset about here. They are extremely powerful people, and they (consequently, in part) have nice lives. Of the various potential ways for them to be corrupted, teaching a few silly classes in exchange for a summer in Salzburg sounds pretty innocuous.
